


the few living things, rotting fast

by deerie



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Mental Health Issues, POV Second Person, References to Drugs, Sexual Harassment, Tarot, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 03:03:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18241082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerie/pseuds/deerie
Summary: You want to go back in time and tell yourself that the cards weren’t a joke. The groundwillcrumble beneath you. Everythingwillgo up in flames. Youwillgrieve, but it won’t be for the brother you thought it would be.





	the few living things, rotting fast

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for ghost-related gore (lots) and ghost-related sexual harassment (just one line). There's a lot of angst here, but I think the ending is hopeful even if it doesn't seem that way.

Something rattles the heavy door. It paces back and forth; it shivers, it shakes, it skitters: something like cockroaches or fingernails burrowing beneath the gap. It wants in. It wants in.

It wants in.

 

*

This one cradles his guts in his arms. He moans lowly and you’re not sure you fully understood the term ‘death rattle’ until now. Does a death rattle even apply to someone who’s dead? You aren’t sure. You don’t want to know the answer. You don’t want to think about this at all, but there’s a dead man kneeling in front of you, intestines and innards pouring out of the slit cut from below his belly button to his sternum, and you can’t make him go away.

Some of them scream at you. Some of them know your name. Some of them reach, reach, _reach_ for you. You become the skittering thing, pushing yourself backwards against the dirt floor with your heels and your hands.

He moans again, wheezes and coughs.

For a terrifying moment, you can’t breathe. Your hands come up to grip at your throat, but you can’t force the air in with your fingers. You’re going to die, you think, here with only the squelch of organs and drip-drop of sticky blood as your witnesses.

 

*

Diego asks you once -- and only once -- about the drugs, you think. You can’t really hear him over the dead women screaming in your ears. You scrunch your eyes shut and he takes it as a deflection.

You wonder what it must be like to live in a silent world. You think it must be nice.

Diego sighs and moves to stand up, but you reach out, lightning quick, and grab his wrist. When he settles back into the couch, you try to smile but it must come out more as a grimace. Whatever, you think. Whatever.

You open your mouth, once, twice. The words get stuck in your throat. The women scream louder in your ear. The noise feels like an icepick to the back of your head.

You, unfortunately, know what that looks like too.

With your free hand, you bat at the dead women, willing them to go away, but it hasn’t ever worked before.

“Stop,” you rasp out, both at Diego and the women. “You’re so loud, I can’t take it. I can’t do it.”

Diego stills and you shift to your knees on the couch beside him. You try to curl up as small as you can. Your forehead hits his shoulder. His hand comes up to box in your ear like he can muffle whatever it is you’re hearing, but he can’t. He can’t.

“Make it stop,” you plead. “Please, make it stop. I can’t, I can’t do it.”

Diego can’t make it stop any more than you can. He puts his other arm around you and pulls you into a hug, but he can’t make it stop.

The women, enraged with your inattention, scream at you louder.

 _God_ , you wish they’d shut up already.

 

*

You don’t often know their names. You never think to ask.

 

*

The girl, who paces outside your doorway in the nighttime, cries very softly. Or, at least, you think she cries.

You kind of feel like crying.

It’s hard to tell, because she makes noise, somehow, even though her throat has been torn out. The sound she makes is a gurgling, wet noise, but you think it must be crying. She’ll never be able to tell him what did this to her, whether it was a wild animal or some other monster with wicked hands and a sharp smile.

You can’t decide whether this is a good thing or not. Probably not. Nothing about this is a good thing.

You think that if you ever figure out how to help them, you’ll help her first. She never bothers you. She never reaches for you, stuck in an endless loop of pacing and crying. Her eyes look wet and lost the brief moments you allow yourself to catch her wandering gaze.

You want to help her, you think. That’s funny, because you don’t even want to help yourself.

 

*

Allison doesn’t do it to be cruel, you think. That’s what you tell yourself in your head after: “I heard a rumor that you were quiet.”

_“I’m going to kill-” “Look at me! Look at me, please-” “It was my husband-” “Help me-” “I want to go home-” “Please, mommy-” “Where am I=” “Who are you-” “I can’t see anything! Why can’t I see-” “Help me=” “I’m going to kill you-” “Why does it hurt-” “I can’t find my hands-” “Help me-” “They took my teeth first-” “I had just met him-” “Why is it so dark-” “I know you can see me-” “I just want to go home-” “I’ll strangle-” “I’m so scared, please-” “Where am I-” “Why does it hurt so bad-” “He told me we were going to see my mom-” “Please, just look at me-” “Help me-” “Help me-” “Help me-”_

You can’t talk to drown out the screaming and the pleading and the threats, so instead you bang your head against the wall until you fall unconscious.

When you wake up, Allison looks ashamed. You finger the blood on your collar and don’t meet her eyes. She gives you your voice back, but you carefully press your lips together and don’t forgive her.

 

*

Time makes you cruel. Or, is it all the ghosts?

 

*

Daddy Dearest locks you in the mausoleum and you beg to be let out by a man who has never cared about you and isn’t about to start caring now.

Something slithers in the dark.

You close your eyes. You count to ten. It doesn’t help.

 

*

You shuffle the tarot deck. The corners are well worn and the pictures are strikingly familiar. You pull three at random, placing them down on the floor with a care you don’t normal reserve.

You have never handled yourself with care. No one has ever handled you with care.

The first card is Justice. The man on the deck peers at you upside down, his sword pointed at you. The card tells you to hold onto your secrets, keep them tightly clutched and pray that no one finds out. All the choices you will make will be mistakes.

The middle card is the Seven of Swords. A boy carries off five swords and two are left in the ground behind him. This card asks you to be strategic, to trust no one. You think about your years at the Academy: at least this has been ingrained into you well.

The last card is the Ten of Swords. A body lays prone on the ground, ten swords sticking out of his back. This is an ending. The world will crumble beneath your feet. Someone close to you will betray you.

You laugh and laugh and laugh.

Vanya finds you later, still laughing. Maybe you’re crying, you don’t know. Even your own cards think you're a joke.

You try to share it with her, but you don’t think she gets it. She frowns. You pat the corners of her mouth and hiccup down a sob.

 

*

This one looks normal. He wears a button-up shirt. There are no obvious wounds on him. You think maybe he died peacefully in his sleep, but you are starting to realize that none of the dead that haunt you ever die peacefully.

He tells you how pretty your mouth is.

You throw up in the space between your bed and the wall.

 

*

Five has been gone for years now. At first, you tried to summon him every night, afraid of what you might find but needing to know. You need to know if you can grieve.

Eventually, you stop asking for Five. You realize, with startling clarity, that you’d rather not know if he is dead.

 

*

You want to go back in time and tell yourself that the cards weren’t a joke. The ground _will_ crumble beneath you. Everything _will_ go up in flames. You _will_ grieve, but it won’t be for the brother you thought it would be.

 

*

Luther will drop you off at rehab. Not once, not twice, but every time you go that isn’t mandated by the court. You don’t tell the others. You don’t think he does either.

You get your thirty-day chip more times than you can count, but it never takes. You leave rehab, you get high again. You can’t take the screaming anymore. You can’t help them; you can’t even help yourself.

Luther picks you up out of alleys with needles still halfway in your arm. He pulls you out of crack houses. He plucks you out of parties when you have the bitter taste of pills beneath your tongue.

You never know how he finds you. You never know if you should feel grateful or hateful. You don’t really know what to feel these days. You don’t really know how to feel.

Luther will walk into rehab with you. He’ll palm the back of your neck with his big hand and shake you a little bit, just so he gets your attention. You try to pay attention, you swear.

He tells you to try again. You haven’t slept in a warm bed in months, so you say you will.

You both ignore the lie.

You think this is the kindest thing Luther has ever done for you.

 

*

Something rattles the heavy door. It paces back and forth; it shivers, it shakes, it skitters: something like cockroaches or fingernails burrowing beneath the gap. It wants in.

You press your hands to your ears and dip your head to the floor.

Something slithers in the dark.

His face, when you see it, is bathed in red. His skull is cracked. Horrible, writhing appendages curl outward from his stomach, keeping his body aloft.

“No, no,” you moan, low and sickly. “Please, no.”

 

*

You die that one time, and it turns out that God hates you just as much as your father does.

That’s it. That’s the joke, you think.

 

*

_“Look at me-” “Look at me-” “Klaus, why won’t you look at me-”_

None of the ghosts have ever been close enough to you to know your name.

You look up. “Ben,” you say. You can’t deny it any longer. You can’t deny him. You’ve never been able to say no to him, not really. “Ben.”

None of the ghosts have ever been your family before.

The slithering, skittering thing stops.

 

*

Ben looks at you and smiles.

You would smile back but you aren’t sure how.

**Author's Note:**

> This was ... not fun to write, but fun to write, if you catch my drift. Obviously Klaus would be an unreliable, disjointed narrator. It was kind of fun to play around in the second person point of view, even if I don't think I'll be doing that again. 
> 
> And, of course, my first dip into this fandom was this nightmare. You're welcome. 
> 
> Tune in next time, when I post a much happier-ish coffee shop AU. :) I'm not on tumblr these days. Talk to me in the comments.


End file.
